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Monday, October 04, 2004

The Muslim Problem

In 1967 and 1968, Japan, Europe and America were aflame with violence. From the London School of Economics, to the Sorbonne, from Japan to Rome and in dozens of cities across the United States, tens of thousands of students staged protests and sit-ins throughout the countries of the First World. While dozens of books with varying theories concerning the causes of this conflagration have been written, most agree implicitly or explicitly on one thing: post-war fecundity, the unusually high world-wide population of young people following World War II, was the fuel for the fire. The irony is rather interesting.

In the mid to late 1800’s, Darwin and Galton together created the science of eugenics. Darwin’s evolution theory was popular for essentially one reason: it was developed against the backdrop of an English industrial revolution that itself had created soaring urban population densities, population densities with resulting problems of crime, housing and sanitation never before seen in the modern area. Darwin and Galton seemed to be describing the roots of a problem that no one knew how to address. Darwin described how dense populations worked, Galton came up with the term "eugenics" to describe a theoretical solution to the problem dense populations posed, and the American, Margaret Sanger, provided the practical solution: contraception.

Though nearly two millenia of Christian opposed contraception, socialist fear-mongers used the threat of overpopulation as a bogeyman to argue against the capitalist state. They eventually won out. Fueled by two world wars and the capitulation of the Anglican Church in 1930, contraception quickly gained social acceptance across all strata of European and American society. As several Catholic popes predicted, this destroyed Christian culture.

You see, increasingly affluent adults began to realize that they need not ever take on the responsibility and discomfort of raising children, so they stopped doing so. Today, every First World country is experiencing a birth dearth. There are no longer enough native births in any First World country to maintain national economies, much less national social support systems. The only thing that will keep the social support systems in these countries from melting down is immigration: massive immigration. European immigrants arrive primarily from Muslim North Africa. This does not bode well for the maintenance of European culture.

This short history just goes to show that there is no one so parochial, so provincial in outlook, as an urban intellectual. Industrialization always brings high urban populations, which populations in turn bring the urban intelligentsia to the (shocking) realization that their intellects are not up to the task of solving the problems high populations pose. "If we can’t solve these problems, no one can," they conclude. Thus, their local problem is soon described, by common agreement among urban intellectuals, as a world-threatening problem.

It would be comical if their solution were not so blood-thirsty. They always eventually solve their difficulties by getting rid of people. They haven’t the imagination to come up with anything else. It is no wonder that the intellectual’s favorite thought experiment involves seven people stranded at sea in a lifeboat built for six. They will happily spend weeks discussing who shall be thrown off (hint: it’s never them).

"This little jaunt through history is all well and good," you may be thinking, "but the article is entitled, ‘The Muslim Problem’ and so far, not a word has been said about Muslims." So, let’s say a word or two.

Many people, including myself, have been concerned about the massive Moslem immigration into Europe. America is beginning to face the consequences of European Islamicization as she finds fewer and fewer allies there for Middle East adventures. America needs to get used to that. France, Germany, even England, will become less and less amenable to American policy if only because their politicians will become more and more interested in placating the Muslim vote – at least for the short period of time remaining before the major political figures of Europe are themselves Muslim. Many people have been describing this problem, but few see any solution. While I do not pose a solution, I do pose a relevant series of questions.

Are Muslim intellectuals capable of avoiding the intellectual hubris that post-Christian atheist intellectuals have repeatedly fallen into? To what extent will the Muslims hollow themselves out, following the example of the European Christians? It’s too early to tell, but there are signs of hope.

Iraq is, of course, fighting for its cultural life. If democracy and its woes is successfully introduced, traditional Islam in the land of Abraham will be rendered untenable. Neighboring Iran is on the very brink of revolution, as mobs of young people stage violent riots that are violently put down across the breadth of that nation. To the southwest, the House of Saud has never been particularly stable and nothing seems likely to increase its stability in the near future. It is doubtful they would have survived this long without American and European assistance.

Christianity created the science that led to the Industrial Revolution. That revolution created the carrot of affluence and the stick of "overpopulation" that drives the contraceptive philosophy, a philosophy that destroys the ability to live the Christian life. Christian bishops, by and large, were not up to the task of removing the love of affluence or the fear that large populations would take the affluence money away.

So, we in the West need to answer one question. What is inherent to Islam that will create the same kind of carrot and stick for Moslems? The varying flavors of Islam and the complete lack of central authority already guarantees that, when the right levers are found, the mullahs will be completely unable to pull their adherents back into line. Christian bishops may not be particularly competent, but the history of Islam demonstrates the mullahs are rarely any more competent. After all, if they were, there would not be so many variants of Islam. Whatever one may say about Christianity, we didn’t invent the term "assassin," nor does the act figure so prominently in Christian history as it does in the history of Islam.

Just as Jerusalem was once the land of the Jews and the Christians, but will soon be the land of the Muslims (the demographics are inexorable), so Mecca and Medina may well find itself in the hands of secular atheists within a few generations, even as Europe and Indonesia become hotbeds of militant Islam. As recent events demonstrate, Islam is a tinderbox quite ready to eat itself up if only the right match can be found. It’s time we begin looking for the match.